New Jerseyans Slow to Abandon Landline Phones [AUDIO]

While you might be tied to your cell phone, a Pew Research Center study finds that New Jersey leads the country in homes that still have landline phones.

Flickr Karolina Kabat

In New Jersey, 78.9 percent of homes still have landlines, even if they don’t use them regularly. On the other end of the spectrum, Idaho has 52.3 percent of its homeowners as “wireless only.”

Mississippi, Arkansas and Washington D.C. round out numbers two through four of states on the list that have wireless only households, with 49 percent, 49.4 percent and 46 percent respectively.

Pew’s study doesn’t give much explanation for the findings, however a similar study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds nearly two thirds of adults ages 25-29 live in wireless households, and slightly more than half of adults living in poverty adopted similar circumstances.

Technology Analyst Jeff Kagan said New Jersey’s status as last in line isn’t necessarily a negative thing, but “it just means the people there don’t have the need or desire to jump into the wireless world.”

The preponderance of cellular-only households will only increase as smartphones integrate themselves more into our lives, Kagan believes.

“Tomorrow, all we’re going to have to do is grab our smartphone because our smartphone will do everything,” Kagan said. “Our smart phone will unlock the door, it’ll start the car, it’ll have our money.”

Kagan said the switch to cellular won’t mean the miles of wires and phone lines will be completely abandoned, but will instead be used to deliver internet access.

“We’re not using for phone calls, but to connect the house to the broadband network or to the office network,” Kagan said.

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